‘Its Farage’s Party Now’: Lewis Goodall Says ‘Hostile’ Right-Wing Takeover of Conservative Party is Complete
Former BBC journalist and co-host of The News Agents podcast Lewis Goodall delivered a blistering verdict on Thursday’s episode at the Conservative Party Conference: that centrist appeasement was a failure and the Tories have undergone a “hostile” right-wing takeover, so much so that “it’s [Nigel] Farage’s party now.”
“There has been a slow burn hostile takeover of the Conservative Party and it started probably in about 2013 to 2014,” he said.
Goodall compared it to the takeover of the Labour Party by its former hard-left leader Jeremy Corbyn, before explaining that the Conservative Party centrist policy of appeasing the party’s right has failed: “The left of the Conservative Party frankly has less guts and is a bit more like the soft left of the Labour Party… They appease, they give a little bit more and they give a little bit more… It’s not going to happen and you end up in the situation that they’re in now, where basically it is Farage’s party now and in the sense as well. We should say that is a trend which is mirrored across Europe.”
It was hard not to see the encroachment of the party’s more right-wing personalities throughout the conference speeches in demands for the rollback of net zero policies, immigration control and resistance on gender issues.
When it comes to Farage, the former Brexit Party leader and former Conservative Party member was front and centre at conference events. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was challenged by GB News in an interview during the conference to comment on whether he’d be happy for Farage to return to the party. Ducking the question and its implications somewhat, Sunak tactfully described the party as a “broad church.”
Meanwhile, Farage was warmly courted. He found himself invited as a guest of honour at a dinner hosted by anti-Sunak campaigners of the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) and, in an evening party thrown at the local Hilton hotel by GB News, was filmed dancing with key Conservatives including Boris Johnson’s former Home Secretary Priti Patel.
In an interview with BBC Newsnight, however, Farage gave a more shrewd opinion: “Let’s see what happens. They are going to lose the next election. There will then be the most enormous battle for ideas… If it became a real Conservative Party I might think about it.”
